After 20mins of drilling rucks, mauls and passing with their coaches a Wenden U11 team took on Maldon. It took a few minutes to get into the game but their drills were soon being put into action as they expertly rucked and recycled ball allowing them to progress up the pitch towards the try line. Much of the game was played in the Maldon half but Maldon battled hard to prevent more tries from being scored. In the end Wenden crossed the line 4 times and finished up winning 0-4.

After a short break where South Woodford played Maldon another Wenden U11 team took on the same Maldon team. The match was end to end and very exciting to watch though Wenden fought bravely and their persistence was rewarded twice with no response from Maldon - Wenden won this game 0-2.

The Wenden coaches decided to mix up the teams ahead of a further match with South Woodham. The South Woodham team seemed huge compared to our payers but we reminded them of the old adage, ‘the bigger they are, the harder they fall’ and after a few minutes of play this seemed to be the case. Again the team rucked really well and recycled ball allowing them to play a running game and to score 3 tries with no response.

The final members of the Wenden squad had waited patiently to play the other Maldon team. This was a much closer match with the breakdown being a hotly contested area of the game – at times there was over exuberance from both teams leading to more players being committed at the rucks than allowed. During one of the hotly contested rucks the Maldon team broke away and ran down the wing to score a try against Wendens. The Wenden team settled back into their typical rucking, recycling and passing game and soon recovered by scoring two tries which is where the game ended as 1-2.

Well done to all players who took part, especially those where this was their first fixture for Wendens or at all!

A few things to continue to focus on during training next weekend. We still need to improve our decision making, for example to commit more or less players to the ruck based on what is in front of them, and we need to keep the play wider using the whole pitch rather than focusing play up the middle and of course we need to keep running straight lines and not across the pitch. Plenty for the U11 coaching group to think about this week.

Wendens Ambo Mini RFC

Maldon RUFC

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